6th London Scalextric Club (31st July 2012)

No regulations this evening, so everyone tried out some of their more experimental cars. We raced 3 lanes for 2.5 minutes, then you stay on for a race just moving over by 1 lane. I got my first race win, had a faultless 2-race run and scored my first time under 9 seconds!

1st Pair of Races

My first race was dreadful, just had terrible throttle timing and very abrupt with it. It was a tricky Lancia prototype with magnet effect from the motor. You’re either inside the limit or over it and I struggle to find a rhythmn with cars like that.

2st Pair of Races

A red GT40 lent to me by Steve, the club chairman, was my safe choice. It’s a fast car but no magnet effect from the motor which actually suits my style really well. I did 2 races with no crashes using that car and took it to my first win!

Unused Racer Excuses

My win was mainly due to Steve (club chairman) using a pretty slow car and the way the other racer crashed twisted the guide. That caused the marshal several seconds of difficulty before the car got going again. Nobody used this to discredit my lucky victory, though.

Marshalling gives an authentic consequence to crashes, I think. The risk of a twisted guide is a bit like stalling the engine in a real racing car (or motorbike) and it taking a couple of attempts to fire up again.

Way back at Calthorpe there were no marhsalls. If you crashed your race over. We only did 8-lap sprint races most of the time, barely lasting a minute.

Atmosphere

Lots of chat about motorsport, slot car tuning and life in general. We had coffees and little cupcakes at the half-time tea break. Some banter throughout the evening, Olympic Games predictions and old rock music nostalgia.

Peace of Mind

Oh, in my last pair of races I used the tricky Lancia again. Decided to drive it carefully and really focus on being smooth. Gave me great peace of mind to achieve that, just one crash in the two races. My last race was on the brown lane and posted my fastest time, just 8.97 seconds! No crashes and narrowly completed 16 laps.

Would like to see what this car can achieve with a better driver.